War Is a Racket. It always has been. The few profit, the many pay in lives and dollars. In this blistering short book, U. S. Marine Smedley D. Butler reveals how he spent his army career serving not his country, but Wall Street and oil barons. He exposes war as the ultimate racket, where industrialists reap billions while soldiers die. Butler demands we take the profit out of war - by conscripting the wealthy first. Butler's explosive 1935 classic exposes the military-industrial complex decades before the term existed. War Is a Racket is a veteran's firsthand indictment of how wars are fought for profit, not patriotism. Smedley D. Butler (1881-1940) was the most decorated U. S. Marine of his time, receiving two Medals of Honor for actions in Mexico and Haiti and rising to the rank of major general. After a 34-year career in conflicts across the globe, he retired and became a vocal critic of American imperialism and war profiteering.